Planning on taking a group up to the 7 Stanes for about 2 days riding in April. Which side would you go for? Glentress/Innerleithen or Kirroughtree/Dalbeatie? All experienced riders prefering the harder/technical side of trail riding.

http://www.singletrackworld.com/trailguide/uk/southern-scotland/kirroughtree-2/

Kirroughtree rules

Agreed.

Kirroughtree – Black or Red or both 🙂

Innerleithen and Kirroughtree are the best ones. Take some extra gas. 😀

What dates?

Kirry is THE best Stane

Being biased I like Dalbeattie/Mabie and Ae better than GT/Inners. There is a lot of good off-piste stuff there tho.

Can do a meet the stw "local" thing and see the best bits 😉
Cheeky trail from Sunday;

Kirroughtree and Drumlanrig would be my pick with that brief, but you can't go too far wrong with any of them.

I just don't see what the fuss is about with Kirroughtree. To me it’s meandering, unrewarding and a bit of a dull slog. There is nothing terribly challenging about it. In my opinion, please enlighten me people.

To answer the OP, if I were you I would go for the GT/Inners option, far more exciting, difficult and with a larger variety of obstacles etc.

Sounds like your group will enjoy Kirroughtree the most. It's got loads of fast, flowing, technical singletrack.

Dalbeattie is also technical, but in a different way. It's more slower "set pieces" – wooden bits to balance on, tricky rocky sections and slabs to ride down – with some less exciting riding in between.

You could easily fit Dalbeattie and Mabie into a single day. Mabie is a bit less technical, but pretty good fun anyway.

I'm just planning another long weekend up there myself and this thread has got me thinking abotu where to ride.

Thanks everyone. I do fancy having a go at McMoab, but I get to see family if we do Glentress. My normal choice this time of year is either hideous Epping mud or short Danbury dog poo dodging. Lucky barstewards.

KT everyday of the week, i dont rate dalbeatie at all.

Oh and if you are doing all of KT, be prepared, take loads of fuel. Its great fun, but hard work !

i dont rate dalbeatie at all.

Me neither, but then I'm rubbish at slow, balancey sort of riding.

Nonsense – Did you go to Glentress before? It is really, really good and I'm sure your group would enjoy it just as much. So many options to ride different bits there.

I can sympathise re. Epping. Must be a bit sticky at the moment!

I just don't see what the fuss is about with Kirroughtree. To me it’s meandering, unrewarding and a bit of a dull slog

You obviously aren't riding it fast enough 😉

I just don't see what the fuss is about with Kirroughtree. To me it’s meandering, unrewarding and a bit of a dull slog

You obviously aren't riding it fast enough
I saw that one coming after i posted it :P, don't get me wrong i've been there alot and i am not trying to put it down, it's just not my sort of place and I can't get excited about it. Not like i can about GT and Inners

Johnbot – Member
I just don't see what the fuss is about with Kirroughtree. To me it’s meandering, unrewarding and a bit of a dull slog. There is nothing terribly challenging about it. In my opinion, please enlighten me people.

To answer the OP, if I were you I would go for the GT/Inners option, far more exciting, difficult and with a larger variety of obstacles etc.

GT black is a 6ml climb and 6ml decent, nothing difficult at all. It is only the speed of the decending which creates an illusion of exciement. imo ofcourse.
You are correct in that Kirry meanders a bit, but that for me is the attraction rather than the grin that is GT/Inners.
They are all good but my back/knees do not like the Inners climb hence I avoid. GT I have ridden since before it became a Stane so think I my opinion is valid(to me anyway :wink:)

To those of us who ride the Stanes on a regular basis it is not easy to give ther people our opinions, they differ so widely, it is best the OP rides what he wants and makes his own decision.

Some Kirry obstacle: